Nigeria's presidential election is chaos as speedboats and even camels deliver ballot materials

A man holds a flag in support of Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan at a campaign rally for Lagos governorship candidate Jimi Agbaje of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) in Ikeja district in Lagos February 3, 2015. Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Nigerians turned out en masse to vote in a presidential election Saturday that analysts say is too close to call.

Polling stations opened late in many areas as official rushed across the country with ballot materials being delivered by trucks, speedboats, motorcycles, mules and even camels, in the case of a remote northern mountaintop village, according to spokesman Kayode Idowu of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

Streets across the country are deserted. Only electoral officials, observers, security officials and media with relevant stickers are allowed to use the roads. Nigeria has closed all sea and land borders as a security precaution.

One motorcycle rider balanced on his head cardboard panels to construct voting booths on his head, and another tucked a ballot box under his arm, on the road north from Abuja, the capital in central Nigeria.

Good-humored voters smiled when officials arrived late at stations where registration was to start at 8 a.m. (0700 GMT) followed by voting from 1:30 p.m. (12:30 GMT).

Nearly 60 million voters are registered for the first election in Nigeria's history where an opposition candidate has a realistic chance of defeating a sitting president.

President Goodluck Jonathan and former military dictator Muhammadu Buhari are front-runners among 14 candidates who want to govern Africa's most populous nation beset by a northeastern Islamic uprising.

Buhari, resplendent in white robes, was the first voter to have his fingerprints taken at a polling station that opened a half hour late in Daura, his hometown in northern Katsina state.

He was followed an hour later by Jonathan, in black with his trademark Fedora hat, in the southern oil-rich state of Bayelsa. Jonathan's registration was delayed after at least three newly imported card readers failed to recognize his fingerprints, or his wife's. He returned two hours later and was accredited without the machine. Biometric cards and readers are being used for the first time to discourage the kind of fraud that has marred previous votes.

Muhammadu Buhari (C), presidential candidate from the All Progressives Congress party, speaks to supporters during a campaign rally in Gombe February 3, 2015. Reuters/Afolabi Sotunde

Afterward, Jonathan wiped sweat from his brow and urged people to be patient as he had, telling Channels TV: "I appeal to all Nigerians to be patient no matter the pains it takes as long as if, as a nation, we can conduct free and fair elections that the whole world will accept."

However, trader Angela Okele expressed concern after getting accredited in Port Harcourt, Nigeria's southern oil capital. "The process is too slow, if it continues like this many people will not be able to cast their votes today," she said.

Electoral officials stressed that once voting starts it will not end until the last person in line has voted, even if it takes all night.

At Jere, a town 60 kilometers (38 miles) north of Abuja, electoral officials said they had only one card reader, which has a capacity for about 700 voters, and twice as many people lined up. An official was sent by motorcycle to collect another.

This is only the eighth election since Nigeria's independence from Britain in 1960. In a country steeped in a history of military coups and bloodshed caused by politics, ethnicity, land disputes, oil theft and, lately, the Boko Haram Islamic uprising, the election is important as Africa's richest nation consolidates its democracy.

There's a lot of international interest, especially among nervous foreign investors as Nigeria is Africa's largest destination for direct foreign investment. Its oil-dependent economy is hurting from slashed petroleum prices.

Nigeria's military announced Friday it had destroyed the headquarters of Boko Haram's so-called Islamic caliphate and driven the insurgents from all major areas in northeast Nigeria, a claim that seems unlikely. There was no way to verify the report. Critics of Jonathan have said recent military victories after months of ceding territory to the Islamic extremists are a ploy to win votes — a charge the presidential campaign denies.

Jonathan and Buhari on Thursday signed a peace pledge and promised to accept the results of a free and fair election. But already dozens have been killed amid hate speech highlighting the religious, ethnic and geographic divisions among Nigerians.

The Islamic uprising that killed an estimated 10,000 people last year has exacerbated relations between Christians like Jonathan, who dominate the southern, oil-rich area of Nigeria, and Muslims like Buhari who are the majority in the agricultural and cattle-herding lands of the north. The population of 170 million is almost evenly divided between Christians and Muslims.

Some 1,000 people were killed in rioting after Buhari lost to Jonathan in the 2011 elections. Thousands of Nigerians and foreign workers have left the country amid fears of post-election violence.

In 2011, there was no doubt that Jonathan had swept the polls by millions of votes.

Now the race is much closer. The game-changer that transformed Nigeria's political landscape came two years ago when the main opposition parties formed a coalition and for the first time united behind one candidate, Buhari.